407 Responses

Vast forests have already been sacrificed to the public debate about the Tea Party: what it is, what it means, where it's going. But after lengthy study of the phenomenon, I've concluded that the whole miserable narrative boils down to one stark fact: They're full of shit. All of them. At the voter level, the Tea Party is a movement that purports to be furious about government spending — only the reality is that the vast majority of its members are former Bush supporters who yawned through two terms of record deficits and spent the past two electoral cycles frothing not about spending but about John Kerry's medals and Barack Obama's Sixties associations. The average Tea Partier is sincerely against government spending — with the exception of the money spent on them.

Yeh, there's more money and mass for the irrationals over there and they have their own designated tv channel, but there are similar strong conservative waves over here, i hear the most outrageous things about race,economics and welfare down here everyday.

And the National Party always bring a mean spirirt to the state , at least the parts of the state poor folks have to use, welfare. Theattitude from WINZ and IRD always gets nastier and more judgemental.

If I was an American Democrat I would be pretty annoyed that Hillary Clinton is at the bottom of the world shaking hands with a right wing Prime Minister, rather than using all her celebrity power to get the Democrat vote out at this crucial time.

@Hillary: You do realise that Hillary Clinton resigned from the Senate to become Secretary of State? Perhaps Secretary Clinton should stick to the day job -- God knows she's got so many fences to rebuild she has a brilliant post-politics career as a carpenter to look forward to.

America is fucked.

Yeah, well not as deep dicked as we are if Winston Peters ends up holding the balance of power again.

No, this is just people ya meet in the office and street, real time conversations. Mo Tucker is a political idiot, who would have thought, who knows what they look like.

One minute your having a conversation about the rugby and then the evil of the state. We haven't got a union problem in this country, we have a streak of conservative do-nothings who scare the shit out of you when they start preaching their empathy-free hardcore "individualist-low taxes" views.

Now that is funny. I hope you laughed, Petra. I put a comment on Deborah Coddington's Herald "articlette" where she banged on about, amongst other things, Robyn Malcolm's hair and her hand-waving. I thought it was a very mild comment along the lines of "Please let go of this nastiness before it affects your health" but hey! it was too much for the poor old Harold.

And when it comes to coyote ugly politics, the Americans have nothing on the Aussies:

STATE Labor has stepped up its campaign against the surging Greens, targeting the party's candidate for Melbourne, prominent barrister Brian Walters, and seeking to smear him as anti-Semitic and an unscrupulous lawyer.

Senior Labor figures including former Victorian secretary Stephen Newnham have contacted influential members of the Jewish community seeking to generate a political backlash against the Greens, and Mr Walters in particular.

Ugly and desperate. I'm no fan of the Greens, but if the Victoria State government doesn't actually understand that defending an alleged Nazi war criminal doesn't make you a Nazi (or the basic principle that everyone accused of a crime is entitled to a defence) everyone should be very nervous indeed,

Deborah Coddington's Herald "articlette" where she banged on about, amongst other things, Robyn Malcolm's hair and her hand-waving

There seems to be a reinvention rush from a few local female writers to be our own Michelle Malkin. It's so hard to understand what's wrong with them other than a sneaking suspision they really fucking hate a lot of folks, for the pettiest of reasons.A lot of the language is aggressive and unreasonable, almost trying to play against the image of the maternal mind as an empathetic one.